“Scholars, please make your research available for free,” asks Harvard University.

Being an international teacher with limited resources, I appreciate the research I can find online for free. I LOVE Wikipedia! I love its democratic approach to information. Admittedly, I would like to access some serious scholarship online and I sometimes am fortunate enough to get a colleague from a school or university in the States to send me some up-to-date articles.

Well, I guess I am not alone. Even Harvard University, an institution known for its deep pockets, is turning to its scholars and asking them to make their research available for free. According to Harvard’s Faculth Advisory Council, “Harvard’s annual cost for journals from these providers now approaches $3.75M.”

Harvard pleaded with its scholars to publish its research through open sources that can be found online without cost. The memo asked Harvard’s scholars to trade ‘prestige’ for open access.

In the past, I wrote articles for academic journals and all I received in return was a few copies of my article. I must admit, I did feel grateful for the modicum of academic prestige I attained by being published by Columbia University or Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Are some of you scholars out there making a large income from writing articles for academic journals?

I would appreciate it if JSTOR would make its vast number of academic articles available to little schools and individuals scholars for an affordable price. $10-$20 a month?

I believe that research, ideas and academic conversations should be available for an affordable cost to any academic, whether they be connected to Harvard or working independently.

Please, scholars, let us access information whether or not we can afford to visit your beautiful libraries. Whether I am teaching and writing in Lutsk, Ukraine or Tallinn, Estonia, I am grateful to academics who are willing to share their ideas and new research.

Books I am reading

That monumental meeting in 1972–during what Nixon called “the week that changed the world”–could have been brought about only by powerful leaders: Nixon himself, a great strategist and a flawed human being, and Mao, willful and ruthless.

They were assisted by two brilliant and complex statesmen, Henry Kissinger and Chou En-lai. Surrounding them were fascinating people with unusual roles to play, including the enormously disciplined and unhappy Pat Nixon and a small-time Shanghai actress turned monstrous empress, Jiang Qing.

And behind all of them lay the complex history of two countries, two great and equally confident civilizations: China, ancient and contemptuous yet fearful of barbarians beyond the Middle Kingdom, and the United States, forward-looking and confident, seeing itself as the beacon for the world.

Nixon thought China could help him get out of Vietnam. Mao needed American technology and expertise to repair the damage of the Cultural Revolution. Both men wanted an ally against an aggressive Soviet Union.

Did they get what they wanted? Did Mao betray his own revolutionary ideals? How did the people of China react to this apparent change in attitude toward the imperialist Americans? Did Nixon make a mistake in coming to China as a supplicant? And what has been the impact of the visit on the United States ever since?